Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2013-05

= Announcements =

MediaWiki 1.22/wmf1 here now, and 1.22/wmf2 next week

 * MediaWiki 1.22/wmf1 was released last week, doesn't seem to have any impact, and nothing is evident from the notes
 * MediaWiki 1.22/wmf2 is released next week (Wednesday for us), most important change that I can see will be happening will be that numbers of old skins will be turned off. — billinghurst  sDrewth  03:50, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Requests for comment/Interproject links interface
At meta, those from Wikidata have opened a Request for Comment about interproject linkss interfacem and this includes Wikisource. Interproject links are the set of links that convey to the user the existence of pages relative to the subject in other sister projects (Wiktionary, Wikisource, Commons, etc.). This RFC has the aim to ask the communities for their opinion on proposed interfaces that would allow storing the interproject links in a central location, such as Wikidata. See also 708. I invite all with an opinion about interlinking to at least read the proposal, and then either comment on the RFC, or if a little uncertain then maybe comment here. Thanks. — billinghurst  sDrewth  07:50, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I am not seeing a well thought out plan, no idea how this would work. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:48, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

From WMF:Change to section edit links
This is a quick heads up that there is an upcoming change to the way section edit links are generated, and a relatively minor design update as well.

There is a pretty comprehensive explanation of what this is, why, the timeline, etc. on Meta: Change to section edit links

The default position of the "edit" link in page section headers is going to change soon. The "edit" link will be positioned adjacent to the page header text rather than floating opposite it.

At the link the page has information about the change, to provide editors who don't like it with a way of restoring the old appearance, and to provide guidance to developers (gadget authors, et al.) about updating code to be compatible with the new output. — billinghurst  sDrewth  23:26, 29 April 2013 (UTC)


 * As a further comment it would seem to be rolling as a part of MediaWiki 1.22/wmf3 which for us is Wednesday 1 May. — billinghurst  sDrewth  23:31, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

= Proposals =

Changing the community collaboration?
Is there any support for changing the current community collaboration from NARA to WikiProject Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library? Technically this is only a sideways change, as the library is part of NARA. There is currently a Wikimedian in Residence at the library and many works ready to be proofread (some long; some quite short) on Commons. The mid-1970s period is interesting in itself and, due to diplomacy, the material is not limited to the United States. I've already added a few new authors based on this (such as Henry Kissinger, Deng Xiaoping, etc) and added the first works to empty author pages (like James Callaghan). There wasn't any response on the Community collaboration page, so this seemed the next best place to bring it up. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 01:40, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It's a worthy project, but I suspect many of the regular members here already have a lot on their plates (I could be wrong). What I suggest is posting an inquiry in a suitable discussion forum on Wikipedia, specific to the kinds of materials to be transcribed, describing carefully for the noobs what is needed and expected in terms of both effort and skills.  This could be a good way to bring in and to train up new contributors. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:50, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
 * i would leave a note with w:User:Dominic who was wikimedian in residence. he knows some of the institution issues. i think he's planning something this year, but a task group switch to the most active location could work. Slowking4 (talk) 03:08, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
 * There are already matching projects on Wikipedia and Commons, and I've seen a little cross-project interest (although not much). Part of my reasoning is that the NARA project looks like it has slowed down a bit recently.  Assuming I'm right and haven't missed anything, having a static but dormant project on the main page doesn't look good for us.  Even cycling through multiple projects might look better. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:07, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikisource wizard
i was talking to an archivist, who expressed the desire for a simplified method of uploading works into wikisource. is there interest in developing a wizard for interested editors? process flow = upload pdf to commons -> automatically convert to dejavu -> automatically create work & toc at source -> automatically match and split pages at source ? (a lot of work; but lowering the barrier would generate a lot of interest. Slowking4 (talk) 23:36, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * See this meta:Grants:IEG/Elaborate Wikisource strategic vision, It looks like the proposal was granted funding. Hopefully we will see something in the not to distant future. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:45, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The second largest grant of this batch (€10k) but the proposal was not for anything implementable, it's more an investigation into what Wikisource needs and how to achieve it. A second stage might result in implementation based on the vision developed.  It's also mostly about metadata, citation and inter-project integration, from my reading.  Nevertheless, it might be worth pointing this out to them.  It might be included in the final vision.  Another avenue would be suggesting it for the next Google Summer of Code or similar event. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:56, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Google Summer of Code is mentioned below but, for convenience, the link to the main Wikisource discussion is here. I don't know if it is too late or not for this year's event. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:09, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

WS:Extracts
I propose for WS:Extracts to be formally recognized as either a policy or a guideline. Please give your support to a specific status (policy, guideline, or other disposition).--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 15:45, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Policy


 * Erasmo Barresi (talk) 15:45, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Guideline




 * Other disposition


 * I started a discussion about this page on its talk page. I don't think it covers any new ground here at WS, so I propose redirecting it.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:46, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

= BOT approval requests =

Notice of bot run: adding date category to validated indexes
I am in the middle of running a bot to add a categorisation template to fully validated index pages. I've partly run this to see if it works; the results are in Category:Indexes validated by date. If there are no reported problems I will continue up to April 2013. (NB: It is a template rather than just a category because I've noticed additional categories getting lost from index pages in the past.) - AdamBMorgan (talk) 10:00, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I have randomly checked several of the edits and they appear accurate and non-problematic. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:34, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It would be worthy to check that the source list for changes is OK as well. I randomly checked and found no issues.--Mpaa (talk) 11:43, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Obviously they have not all been updated, but those I checked that had been updated appeared fine. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 14:51, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅. Plus a portal (Portal:Proofreading milestones) based on the same information. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 01:10, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks Adam great job : :) JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:29, 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * As User:Robbie the Robot will probably need to do this periodically, should the bot be "officially" approved? JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:29, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It might be better if the task was persistent rather than the bot. All Robbie did was a search-and-replace based on the information in the list Mpaa generated.  Any AutoWikiBrowser bot, or user, could do the same and, if I'm away, there's no reason to wait if someone else can do the job. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:07, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree, would you list it there? JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:36, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

=Help=

= Other discussions =

When Validated
Having finally started downloading from Wikisource and using Calibre to convert books for my Kindle, I started browsing Category:Index Validated for works to harvest for my library. There are 981 validated books available today (which is great), but when I come back in 3 months for more, how would I look for only the newest works. There is a link to Special:NewPages on the main page, but it does not offer me any help as it has lots of new pages, but does not seem to call out validated books. I see there is an archive of New_texts, but it requires a bit of wikiknowledge to find and I am not sure it is complete.

I propose that we create a categorization by month and year that a work is validated. This will allow readers to easily find the our newest best works since their last visit. Jeepday (talk) 21:49, 26 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I support the idea in theory but maintaining it might be quite difficult without dedicated bots. That can be done, Wikipedia maintenance and vandal hunting replies on them, but we don't have any here yet as far as I know.  Presumably someone here knows how to set that up (or knows how to find someone who does).  NB: If you want to know the order works were added, dynamic page lists, as used in latest additions, can be of some use. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:37, 26 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I posted a bot request at Bot_requests but so far no one is offering to take it on. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:39, 2 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Categorisation to Index pages is problematic, predominantly due to the form being used and how and where the category is placed, and if it is later edited that it can drop cats. We can do an API query that shows what works were last edited in a period but it is not the prettiest, plus there is no specific way to know the reason for the change easily.  I would suggest that you are looking for a tool that can do that dynamically.  If you are looking to do the job properly, then it would need to do something with storing the data in the API. You could have a peek at the data in [//en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Index:Vanity_Fair_1848.djvu&action=info action=info] — billinghurst  sDrewth  16:16, 3 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I think you are on the right track, I can use the suggest by you and Mpaa for updating old ones, but the going forward would be best captured dynamically. Maybe adding ’date fully validated’ to the edit history and translating that into categorization. Most (all?) date categorizations I see on Wikipedia, get there by date stamp on a maintenance template. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:35, 4 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Follow up Question - is this something that would add value to visitors in general, or is it just my OCD being over active? JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:35, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Request help from anyone with access to Google books
Not being from the US of A, and a registered user of Google with a Canadian email and IP address, I am blocked from accessing Google books' pages and need the last two lines of the caption of this image to complete the proofreading. This is book link to Google. I ask because both copies of Internet Archive PSm Vol 78 have the same problem. My gratitude to anyone who can access and take a legible snapshot of the caption. — Ineuw talk 05:12, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I've accessed the google books source and added the final lines of text that were missing. --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:05, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Many thanks EncycloPetey.— Ineuw talk 15:38, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

News template
I've only just found, and updated, this template:

So, if you want news delivered to your user page, feel free to use this. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:35, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Missing graphic character
I'm not even sure if that is the correct term, but I boldly created glyph, for use as a placeholder while proofreading (much like Missing image). See usage at Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/67 for example. Moondyne (talk) 13:15, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * "Glyph" is about right; though "character" might be better, unless the context indicates that an exchange of allographs would not be acceptable. You could also have used . Hesperian 13:43, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Or go straight to Chinese missing, if it is Chinese, though that is just a short cut of Hesp's example. — billinghurst  sDrewth  16:26, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * 'glyph' is easier to type and remember. Moondyne (talk) 00:12, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Then please just make it a redirect of language characters, we don't need more renditions of templates of single functions, and to where they categorise. — billinghurst  sDrewth  04:22, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There's something wrong the template logic when no language is given. See Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/67. Moondyne (talk) 05:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Put in a default for the category, it now pokes it in with symbols. Japanese missing and Chinese missing will apply them to the appropriate categories. — billinghurst  sDrewth  09:58, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Questions on POTM Talk page
I have a couple questions on the POTM Talk page if anyone can help. Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 11:58, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Addressed; thanks. Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:39, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Requesting permission to exceed editing limits.
I am willing with support from other contributors to try and set up page-lists to clear a backlog that's built up, to do this shouldn't exceed my current editing restrictions, but I would like the custodians here to keep a sharp eye on my edits.

Currently, I can't flag the items to which I've added a pagelist upto to 'Ready for Proofread' status, and I'd appreciate being able to do this. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 16:09, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm around for the next few hours. Go ahead. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 20:32, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * In addition, I've fixed Statutes at Large Volume 3 by re-ordering the pages in the DjVu file. Problem is, I can't seem to overwrite the old file on Commons with the new one. I made a request for somebody to copy/move/overwrite the file uploaded here on Wikisource over to Commons in the Help section of this Scriptorium page but nobody has taken up the challenge so far. Maybe you should (if you can). -- George Orwell III (talk) 21:11, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Prod on my user page here would have got my attention. Link would have helped. but I will dig it up. — billinghurst  sDrewth  04:24, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Nope, I am too stupid. Which?  Special:PrefixIndex/File:Ruffhead — billinghurst  sDrewth  04:30, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Already taken care of. Thanks for the offer at any rate. -- George Orwell III (talk) 05:42, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

authors with no work
What is your policy toward those authors who have no work in wikisource while adding their works to this wiki is not against copyright law? Is it possible to make a page for them and add their bibliographical information? --217.218.67.253 11:14, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There are many variables here, if you have one specific author in mind, please identify them and some of their works, so we can help you better. In General if an authors works fall into What Wikisource includes and there is an expectation that one or more of those works will or should be hosted here then creating an author page is appropriate. The author page should list the works. Jeepday (talk) 11:57, 10 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Surely, it must be perfectly legitimate to add a presentation of an author here even if they have a few years left before their copyright expires. The author presentation can list the different editions and describe which ones are more wanted or better to digitize, and contain links to already digitized works on other websites. Has there been any controversy over this? --LA2 (talk) 20:30, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The IP comment implies the work is PD or CC currently. Without further clues, I did not want to assume PD-old and have it turn out to be CC Vanity post. We do host author pages for very notable authors like Author:Isaac Asimov, while we have history at Proposed deletions of deleting content and author pages not meeting WS:WWI where the work "is not against copyright law", but is CC Vanity. Jeepday (talk) 11:20, 14 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Right now we're talking 6 years before any new works expire, and that will be the 1923 ones. Plus the rare work by the life+70 author who died 70 years ago but the works were published after 2002.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:27, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Do you have specific works or authors in mind? I checked Special:Contributions/217.218.67.253 and am not seeing any hints. Jeepday (talk) 11:20, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

The approach has been if we are not hosting the works, then an author page can exist if the works are in the public domain and readily linkable; so hosted elsewhere in text and not behind a paywall. If an author page had work(s) listed and it was fully available, but not in the public domain, and hosted legally (ie. not breaching copyright), then I would think that listing it would be okay. If it is just going to be a straight text link of works, with no linking, then that is generally not what we have been about. If you are talking a modern author and listing there works and nothing that is going to be able to be hosted for many years, then generally the answer is, as we see that misleading. Author pages are there to contain links to works, not solely for listing the corpus of works. — billinghurst  sDrewth  14:38, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikisource improvements for Summer of Code 2013
Hello! I am planning to submit a proposal regarding Extension:Collection for this summer's Google Summer of Code and Outreach Program for Women. I left a note about my ideas on the multilingual Wikisource at oldwikisource:Wikisource:Scriptorium, but wanted to mention it here. Any feedback would be most appreciated! – GorillaWarfare (talk) 11:50, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * As an update, I've started my actual proposal. Instead of focusing on Extension:Collection, I'm going to focus my proposal on Extension:BookManager. The problem with effectively printing an entire book is blocked by the need to organize a book's individual pages and chapters into a single unit, and I'm excited about the developments that solving this problem will allow: dependencies of bug 15071. I'm hoping to receive feedback on this, as it's an extension I'm really hoping to see deployed on Wikisource. – GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:13, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Maintenance of the Month for April 2013
I have started submitting proposed policies and guidelines to the above section. Please comment about WS:Periodicals and WS:Portal.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 05:40, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Can you clarify? It sounds like you are saying that assigning a status for proposed rules is a Maintenance task. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:53, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
 * That's the final step. The task is getting the scattered half-completed drafts in working order.  My half-completed drafts in the cases listed above, as it happens. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:32, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikimedia blog post on PGDP's 25k books
I suggested to comcom that a WMF blog post go up concerning Distributed Proofreaders hitting 25,000 books - since encouraging other free culture projects is a good idea - and was told "great idea! Go write it." So it occurs to me that Wikisource should be mentioned (even if just "And also, at home, Wikisource does similar things, but with extra [whatever]"). But I have no idea what y'all are up to at all. Suggestions welcome. Sooner rather than later if possible :-) - David Gerard (talk) 13:25, 12 April 2013 (UTC)


 * For a possible "[whatever]", Wikisource's proofreading is more open than PGDP (which I believe is relatively closed and remote from the final product on PG). To expand on that: with our proofread texts, our source scans are always one click away from the text itself, anyone can double check them at any time, anyone can correct them if necessary, and anyone can read the history of each individual scanned page.  (I would say we are also able to provide wikilinks and similar added depth but that policy is currently being debated.)  NB: By comparion with the 25k, our fully proofread and transcluded documents are in the 900s at the moment (in terms of complete Index pages) and should hit 1k soon. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:11, 12 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Great idea, David -- thanks for making the suggestion! While Adam's point about openness is worthwhile, I'd be wary of emphasizing it -- I'd rather see the main message being that our projects are aligned and support one another, with differences taking a back seat to alignment. Also, Adam, where did you find these numbers? Very interesting! -Pete (talk) 23:11, 15 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The numbers partly come from the bot task mentioned far above but mostly because Category:Index Validated currently has 996 members. Ergo, four more indexes to the big 1K!  NB: I didn't mean to sound antagonistic, that was just the first thing to come to mind.  For another, apparently we seem to cover different kinds of texts (eg. I've heard we have proportionately more science fiction on Wikisource although I've never actually checked) and more use of more recent PD-US-no-renewal-licensed texts. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:10, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Couple questions
I recently started working on A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources. It seems a couple things have changed since I was last active here:


 * 1) I no longer have the "cleanup" script in my lefthand navigation; this was a great script that would strip out extraneous carriage returns, as well as lots of other useful stuff. Any way to get (something like) that back?
 * 2) The nop template doesn't seem to be doing its thing. Several sections are not rendering properly, but instead showing double equal signs around normally-formatted text.

Any suggestions on either of the above? (I have already tried the extra CR before nop as suggested above; it didn't work.) -Pete (talk) 23:46, 15 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi Pete. I've taken your project as far as I can for the purpose of demonstrating a semblance of organization, but there is a lot to be done. Recommend that you continue to proofread and then I will help you assign one main namespace page per each bolded entry of the Table of contents (TOC). That's because transcluding ~142 pages on one web page is too much, and the various sections indicated by a bolded TOC entry is of perfect length. The main TOC entries will have to be linked to the web pages and their sub entries to be anchored to the sub articles of the same web page. I hope this helps. — Ineuw talk 19:12, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Tremendously helpful, thank you! I am learning a lot from watching you work. I have completed the first of the 3 sections (not fully proofread, but at least basically wikified). The main impediment to me though is the lack of the cleanup script -- manually deleting extra carriage returns is getting very tiresome! I hope somebody has a better option. Do you know what became of that user script? -Pete (talk) 19:19, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I have no clue about the script because I clean and format & line wrap the text offline in TextPad (Windows). As for a reply, you will get one, I am sure, even if it takes a little while. — Ineuw talk 19:29, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Some suggestions
The editing window height setting in the Preferences\Editing tab affects namespaces other than the Page namespace, where most of our work is done. Specifically, it would only help those who proofread in the over/under setup (like myself). I am aware that there is a handle to adjust the lower window, but it must be set anew for each page. Furthermore, the top window is of fixed height. would it be possible to modify the two window heights as an option in in gadgets? Thanks. — Ineuw talk 16:35, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

An additional and related suggestion
Another problematic issue is the preview display of the Page namespace which is now Main namespace width, while our work needs to be judged as a Page namespace display width for accuracy. Having the preview display altered to match the Page namespace display would save a lot of unnecessary repeated saves which are now required to get the details, like images, etc. right. — Ineuw talk 01:20, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * A counterargument would be that the preview screen shows the page content more like it would appear after transclusion into mainspace. Hesperian 02:10, 18 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The preview of the Page namespace should display work in the context of that namespace, just as the Main namespace has its own matching preview. This is especially necessary when working with images. Currently, this provides no meaningful information whatsoever. — Ineuw talk 05:38, 18 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Bearing in mind Hesperian's point above, and treating this purely as a technical exercise, adding something like this to your personal  might give you at least something like the effect you desire:

div.pagetext {width:400px;margin:0 auto;}


 * Corrections/criticisms welcomed. MODCHK (talk) 23:07, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks Billinghurst for correcting that. On the spur of the moment my brain failed and I could not recall the correct "Special:" page name.
 * Bearing in mind my javascript is rudimentary at the best of times, here is a string which may be saved as a local bookmarklet (is that the current term?) which achieves a similar, but temporary, effect which might be useful:

}}


 * The "narrowing" effect may be completely removed again by use of this:

}}


 * Of course, less crude approaches are sure to exist! MODCHK (talk) 23:43, 20 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Many thanks for the posts. I am studying it and will implement it. — Ineuw talk 07:32, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Billinghurst, its perfect! It really helps. Thanks a mill.— Ineuw talk 08:00, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Not my glory to claim! Those mods belong to MODCHK (the reluctant). @MODCHK I don't remember them, I have them listed on my user page at meta as I always forget them. However, as a gift ...
 * Special:mypage
 * Special:mytalk
 * Special:Mycontributions
 * Special:Myuploads
 * [/w/api.php?action=query&meta=siteinfo&siprop=specialpagealiases specialpagealiases]
 * — billinghurst  sDrewth  13:36, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

NASA technical translation
Regarding the following translation: Since it is a NASA technical document (translated by Morris D. Friedman, Inc., 1960, see also GBS), I assume the copyright remark "public domain" is correct and it can be hosted here. (The German original published in the year 1911 by Philipp Frank († 1966) and Hermann Rothe († 1923) would be {Pd/1923|1966}). --D.H (talk) 15:41, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * http://archive.org/details/nasa_techdoc_19880069066
 * You can use PD-USGov-NASA for any NASA work that does not explicitly have a copyright declared. However, in this case you'll need to wrap it in Translation license and provide an appropriate license template for the original. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:59, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Kiwix android app — anyone played?
Just saw this WMF blog post that says is usable for the Wikisources too. Anyone played with it? — billinghurst  sDrewth 
 * Yes. http://kiwix.org/m/ (which the Android app uses) currently only offers Wikipedia, but you can see French and Malayalam Wikisource at http://download.kiwix.org/zim/0.9/, and I believe its the French Wikisource that is being used in Africa. John Vandenberg (chat) 00:09, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * On a related note, there is Okawix on Android as well. Not good reviews, but the PC version is nice and they have all of the major projects.  That is my 2 cents anyways.  --Mattwj2002 (talk) 01:59, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I notice after a short (and terminated) play with Kiwix that it relies on the Book tool, and prepared versions of Books. Apart from that OMG they both live! — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:31, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Social bookmarks
Wikinews has Social bookmarks, with fair-use logos like - I think they would be useful on Wikisource too. See also Social media plugins. -- John Vandenberg (chat) 23:58, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I would be OK with this; it might help Wikisource get some attention. That said, I know there has been opposition on other projects to anything even slightly connected to any social networking site.  Practically: we could steal import Wikinews' template, adapt it to Wikisource and make it an experimental gadget (in the sidebar, I suggest).  If it's successful, it could be set to on by default, like some other gadgets.  It depends if there is any support or opposition to doing so. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:52, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Interestingly I prodded about this on the Wikimedia-L mailing list this week. Tilman did a reply that talked about twitter bits coming for blog.wikimedia.org, but nothing else looks to be universal at this point of time. I have no issue with pushing to social media, the purpose of what we do is to share, and this is sharing. Comfortable with us testing it. — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:59, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

1000 Validated Indexes!
English Wikisource now has 1000 complete and validated index pages. The thousandth index, Index:Address on the opening of the Free Public Library of Ballarat East, on Friday, 1st. January, 1869.djvu, was validated earlier today by MODCHK. You can see the time stamp along with the other validations this month on the API. (As noted above, Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders hit 25,000 complete texts this month too.) - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:20, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I've tumbled the occasion too (and that post should also soon be appearing on Planet Wikimedia.) - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:42, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Most Looked at books on en WS
I think that not long ago someone posted a list of books on en.WS that passers-by apparently looked over the most. Where is such a list? What do readers seem to like reading the most? I would prefer to work on the type of books people like the best as opposed to any someone has little or no interest in. Thank you to whomever may reply to this. Kind regards to all, —Maury (talk) 09:23, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The list is at the very top of this page under WS:S. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 09:29, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't go by that list (2011-2012); its based only on a two-day sampling. I don't know why the normal top-page-views list hasn't been updated since 2010 either. -- George Orwell III (talk) 10:00, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It also looks bad on us when works like #1 and #5 show they were deleted because of copyright. The DNB files and the Popular Science works are excellent. My curiosity was about our many books we all struggle to re-create though. Is there anyone who has volunteered to do the updated top page hits you have mentioned? Kindest regards, —Maury (talk) 10:16, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Well I like what I see (even though they are 2 or 3 months behind current) at...


 * http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikisource/EN/SummaryEN.htm  ;and
 * http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikisource/EN/Sitemap.htm
 * ... but those don't seem to be the same "project" as the really simple list last updated in 2010...


 * http://stats.grok.se/en.s/top
 * I really don't have any idea who to reach out to for updating that one (seems like its been set on "auto-pilot" for quite some time now) - George Orwell III (talk) 12:23, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Seems that quotations in File/Page name screw up page numbering display in main ns
In A Critical Examination of Dr G. Birkbeck Hills "Johnsonian" Editions the original file that I uploaded I kept the quotations Index:A critical examination of Dr G Birkbeck Hills "Johnsonian" Editions.djvu. Seems that when I now transclude the pages into the main namespace that is screws up the page numbering on the left hand side. Basically kills all the links from pointing to the relevant pages and instead they point to the stem (main page). It will presumably be a component in MediaWiki:PageNumbers.js and those who are technically skilled it would be great if we could fathom this. Thanks. — billinghurst  sDrewth  01:36, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I had a go but nothing has changed and I can't figure out if that is a caching issue or failure. Hesperian 04:14, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem isn't in MediaWiki:PageNumbers.js. That page is trying to pull the title attribute out of the pagenum spans, and your page simply has none. The problem must be further upstream. Hesperian 04:53, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Fixed with [//en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki%3AProofreadpage_pagenum_template&diff=4402259&oldid=3989604] this edit. Hesperian 05:00, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Mercy buckets. This work with this name managed to challenge the system in a few places. :-/ — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:26, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Implementing Easier and More Efficient Metadata Tags on Wikisource
Disclosure: I am contracted by Creative Commons LRMI Project.

I would like to propose adopting the use of a by-default-disabled Mediawiki metadata feature that would greatly improve the organization and search engine visibility of the content of Wikisource. These metadata tags are part of Schema.org which was developed by Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex, and can be viewed here. The benefit of these tags is that when used within educational content such as on Wikisource, the information contained on the page is made into a way that is easily intelligible to machines by changing just one line with the Mediawiki configuration. An example of MediaWiki using Schema can be seen by using Google's testing tool. These metatags were originally developed by LRMI but their recent adoption of Schema.org is a huge milestone that has great potential to improve the efficiency of the way we are able to search educational resources and content on places like Wikisource. Maximilian.Klein.LRMI (talk) 21:29, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I would think that we would be most interested. The vast bulk of us are transcribers, and know our local product, but lack the expertise of the curatorial and technical side. I will try to spread this further so those who are more adept can assist. — billinghurst  sDrewth  01:59, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Max, I think you should consult with User:Tpt which is the best way to deploy it. The schema.org microformat can be the replacement of the custom-made Wikisource:Microformat, but as it is used for the epub export, the best would be that you contact Tpt and ask him what is the best way to transition to the new system.--Micru (talk) 00:42, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * To note that I raised the matter at Wikidata, hence why Micru has popped over. To see what is happening from the "Wikidata books task force" and the conversation please see d:Wikidata:Project chat. To note that Phe has indicated that Tpt is tied up with RL for the moment, and probably less able to devote some time here for a few weeks. — billinghurst  sDrewth  02:11, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Request for comment on inactive administrators
(Please consider translating this message for the benefit of your fellow Wikimedians. Please also consider translating the proposal.)

Read this message in English / Lleer esti mensaxe n'asturianu / বাংলায় এই বার্তাটি পড়ুন / Llegiu aquest missatge en català / Læs denne besked på dansk / Lies diese Nachricht auf Deutsch / Leś cal mesag' chè in Emiliàn / Leer este mensaje en español / Lue tämä viesti suomeksi / Lire ce message en français / Ler esta mensaxe en galego / हिन्दी / Pročitajte ovu poruku na hrvatskom / Baca pesan ini dalam Bahasa Indonesia / Leggi questo messaggio in italiano / ಈ ಸಂದೇಶವನ್ನು ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಓದಿ / Aqra dan il-messaġġ bil-Malti / norsk (bokmål) / Lees dit bericht in het Nederlands / Przeczytaj tę wiadomość po polsku / Citiți acest mesaj în română / Прочитать это сообщение на русском / Farriintaan ku aqri Af-Soomaali / Pročitaj ovu poruku na srpskom (Прочитај ову поруку на српском) / อ่านข้อความนี้ในภาษาไทย / Прочитати це повідомлення українською мовою / Đọc thông báo bằng tiếng Việt / 使用中文阅读本信息.

Hello!

There is a new request for comment on Meta-Wiki concerning the removal of administrative rights from long-term inactive Wikimedians. Generally, this proposal from stewards would apply to wikis without an administrators' review process.

We are also compiling a list of projects with procedures for removing inactive administrators on the talk page of the request for comment. Feel free to add your project(s) to the list if you have a policy on administrator inactivity.

All input is appreciated. The discussion may close as soon as 21 May 2013 (2013-05-21), but this will be extended if needed.

Thanks, Billinghurst (thanks to all the translators!) 04:33, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Distributed via Global message delivery (Wrong page? You can fix it.)


 * An "inactive administrator" is not an administrator. —Maury (talk) 05:24, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * An inactive administrator is still more of a net gain for a project than a non-administrator. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 05:39, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I bow to your intelligence and experience, EVula. In such a case I should have become an administrator and do nothing to promote a net gain and do nothing to assist a project. I am not arguing, I just don't understand how what you've stated is accurate. How can anyone who is inactive be a net gain for any project? This is interesting. Kind regards, —Maury (talk) 05:50, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * @maury: I am in your camp, rather than EVula's. IMNSHO two years inactive is "missing presume departed".— billinghurst  sDrewth  08:31, 24 April 2013 (UTC)


 * @billinghurst|sDrewth if I had a "camp" no such administrator who does nothing in that camp would be around for 2 months much less two years. Fire them or replace them. What good does it do in keeping them? Replace them when possible. Heck, hire me as an administrator and I will do nothing for only one year. Respectfully, —Maury (talk) 05:55, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * "Heck, hire me", Umm we tried, you turned us down. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:57, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I think this project's policy towards inactive admins is pretty spot-on, and my opinion is more of a general sentiment; there really isn't as much administrative busywork here as, say, enwiki or Commons. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 03:57, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Just to qualify my camp: there does come a certain point where someone's inactivity overlaps with serious changes with the community and so they aren't necessarily a net gain to the project; if someone has been inactive for a couple of years, they can pretty safely be removed. I'm just saying that there's a better chance of an editor making positive administrative contributions with the bit than without, but this is also coming from someone that lurks a lot more than he edits.


 * EVula, if they "can pretty safely be removed" then please do whatever you can to remove them. Of what use is a lazy person holding an administrative position for two years? There may be someone on standby awaiting to do whatever needs to be done. Whatever position all of us take here I think we should consider it seriously and have enough honor to try hard to do what what the individual was elected for by we the people. "two years inactive" is more than confusing to me because inactive is not active meaning nothing gets done which means the person holding that particular position is useless in that position. This is just my honest view of it as I understand what I have read about it here. If it were a paying job and you were his boss that pays out money would you let him do nothing and pay him for it? He is getting something out of that position or he wouldn't be holding on to it. And how does he hold on to it? Here "we the people" vote for our administrators. Name names, everything else is placed in the open -- who has done nothing as an administrator for two years -- and for one year? I want to make sure I never vote for the person or persons. I do thank you for your explanation and mannerable reply. Kind regards, —Maury (talk) 05:55, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Note that this proposal, if enacted, will not override any existing measures, such as we have in place already, and therefore there is no impact on the English Wikisource. Hesperian 06:13, 24 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Hesperian, it is an interesting conundrum. / In some ways it is like a form of an American way of life of do nothing and get paid and/or "You can work yourself out of a job." But now the economy is hurting, the people are wailing, and few are the jobs while trillion$ are owed. Kindest regards, —Maury (talk) 06:37, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Hesperian's comments are correct, this community would be excluded from actions permitted by the proposed guidance due to our existing processes. The decision on circulation of the alert was made universal rather than to exclude communities with identified processes. — billinghurst  sDrewth  08:26, 24 April 2013 (UTC)


 * When I replied to Hesperian I understood his statements and I agree with him. I hope that my statements did not look otherwise. I continued thinking and writing about the idea of the value of any administrator who does nothing being of more value than our editors here who are most always working. In my view the "lower class", if you think as another who posted much earlier, here is far more valuable than anyone who climbs the ladder to get awarded a position of administrator and does nothing for two years. How did that person get voted for a second term? I was talking TO Hesperian not against anything Hesperian stated. Hesperian is one of the many people I admire here. He is a very calm, intelligent, and polite worker. That's as good as one can get. Here is an example, and I hope I don't get slapped with a fish for stating this;, No way can I imagine any administrator who does nothing of being of more value that our many editors. Take the ghost-administrator you, billinghurst, have mentioned who does nothing for "two years". Compare that with one of our top editors (in my opinion), say Londonjackbooks who works apparently non-stop and highly accurately. The last work I saw her doing was on our book of Flowers writing out poems and adding {{nop} to many of them that I had validated -- but not validated properly due to leaving out {{nop} [as in nope!]. So, she edits, validates, and teaches me, and the rest of us by our mistakes. Now, how in the name of brand X can any administrator doing nothing for "two years" be considered of more value that her position as editor? It is impossible for any administrator who does nothing for two years to be more of value than that? There is the conundrum I was writing to Hesperian about. Respectfully, —Maury (talk) 06:21, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I understand EVula's position to be that a person who has proven themselves a good and trustworthy administrator, yet no longer makes much use of their administrative tools, is still of more value to the community as an administrator than not. Ultimately, this comes down to a cost-benefit analysis: on the one hand, we have the risk of a dormant account being compromised and misused, and the risk of an administrator returning to administrative duties after a long hiatus during which they have lost the feel for community consensus and expectations; on the other hand, we have the prospect of getting at least some administrative service out of them, and the prospect of them retaining the sense of being a valued and trusted member of something belonging to, and perhaps coming eventually coming back to us. We are all entitled to run that cost-benefit analysis in our own way, and on that basis to agree or disagree with EVula. Hesperian 07:35, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * My 2 cents; as our standards for adminship now stand there is no obligation to do anything with the tools. There never has been and hopefully never will be. When I was offered the tools the statement "Wikisource grants administrator access to those members who are known in the community and whose edits and contributions have proven trustworthy", held the meaning, "Thanks for hanging around with us, your doing a great job and we don’t think you are likely to doing anything really stupid with the extra tools". IMHO, that is still the expectation, and I always enjoy using my tools here much more then at the other place. The main reason for removal of the tools is security. Just because you have not done anything here for a while, does not mean we don’t like you, or we think less of you.  If you have not been around a while we don’t know if you are still alive, or if your computer has been stolen.  We would still enjoy seeing you again, and would love to have you contribute to the project, but we understand that real life (or death), has a way of intruding on the digital world. Because we don’t know what is going on, for the security of the project, we are deactivating your tools.  When you wake up from the comma (because what else could have kept you from the family?) and get your fingers warmed back up to the keyboard, we would be glad to have you back.
 * As an aside to Jeepday's comments, as his comments reflect a community of significant size. At a small community with up to a handful of administrators to have some or all of your administrators or bureaucrats missing can be problematic. Protocols restrict outside actions where administrators and bureaucrats are in existence, which may mean that these tasks are not undertaken, or not undertaken for an extended period, eg. administrator promotions, or local bot management. House is open, but no one home. Communities look for people who lead, especially in a way that aligns with their vision. — billinghurst  sDrewth  12:20, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Tumblr article
Maury placed a comment on the February Scriptorium section about AdamBMorgan's English Wikisource Tumblr project in March, but it got erased. In consequence the article was archived at the end of March. I have restored the comment and the article above at Scriptorium. ResScholar (talk) 08:38, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Addition to Blocking Policy
I have started a discussion at Wikisource_talk:Blocking_policy to consider adding a new section to the beginning of our blocking policy. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 14:52, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikisource vision development: News April 2013
''I apologize if this message is not in your language. Please help translate it.''

Dear Wikisourcerors, it has been almost a month since we have started with the Elaborate Wikisource strategic vision grant and we would like to share some news with you: And that's it for now! During the month of May, we (Aubrey and Micru) would like to organize at least one Skype or Google Hangout meeting for the users of each one of the 10 biggest wikisources plus another one or two for the other languages (depending on interest). We want to know your opinion on what Wikisource should become in the next years.
 * The Wikisource vision development pages are open to discussion. Specially important: what do you think of creating together an international Wikisource User Group?
 * In case some Wikisources want to use Wikidata to store book metadata and share it with Commons, we have started Wikidata:Books task force to decide which properties are needed. We think it's very important to discuss book metadata there, both for Wikisource and for all other projects.
 * We also started some relevant Requests for Comments for Wikisource:
 * Interproject links interface: how can we improve sister projects visibility?
 * Musical score transcription project proposal: now that Extension:Score allows musical scores both in Wikipedia and in Wikisource (example 1, example 2), we need to define where we want music sheets to be hosted.
 * We are following and promoting a Google Summer of Code project for Wikisource: Improve support for book structures. We are also helping to convert the UploadWizard customisation for books proposal into another GSoC.
 * First contacts have been initiated with Open Library, Internet Archive and Open Knowledge Foundation for possible partnerships. Please check out this page.

Thanks! --Micru and Aubrey 00:56, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Distributed via Global message delivery. (Wrong page? Correct it here.)

An inquiry about users' OS and proofreading tools
Currently, I am working with Windows XP and also tried Windows 7 extensively, coming to the conclusion that after thirty years of MS-DOS and Windows computing, it would be best to explore better options. Are there any editors/proofreaders here on WS using any flavour of Ubuntu, or Mac OS X? If so, which editing/proofreading tools? I am only seeking the names of apps so that I can test them. Thanks in advance. — Ineuw talk 03:19, 28 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I do everything with Firefox. Jeepday (talk) 10:05, 28 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I'll make an assumption about what you mean by "editing/proofreading tools", that you're mainly looking for something that allows you to easily view and manipulate pieces of text…but if you mean something different, please let me know. To me, the most important component of that (especially with regard to wiki editing) is search-and-replace, and the best approach I know to search-and-replace is regular expressions.
 * On Mac, I heavily use TextWrangler. It has a nice point-and-click implementation of RegEx, that was pretty easy to learn, and I have become pretty reliant on it. This is an app that is free to use, but not free/open source. It's a lightweight version of BBEdit, a commercial program with more extensive features for coders. I haven't used BBEdit in many years, so can't comment on that.
 * For a very long time, I've been meaning to learn vi or the related vim. This is useful because, as far as I know, it exists for every computer platform in existence, and it's lightweight so it works fine on older computers, etc. I have no excuse for not having learned it already, and I expect if I did I would probably "graduate" from TextWrangler. If you want to learn this program, please let me know, maybe we can share notes.
 * Finally, if what you're talking about is more like spell checking and grammar checking, looking things up in the dictionary, etc., you may want to consider MacOS's "Services" model. MacOS offers a number of built-in services, and also (I think) a model where others can create plugins that offer services. These services are then available to all applications. I think they are generally considered pretty good; so on Mac, you can generally expect to get good spell checking, for instance, in whatever application you choose to use.


 * Personally, I am a longtime Mac user, very gradually transitioning toward Ubuntu or Lubuntu Linux. This is mainly philosophical, but might be useful to know for any followup comments/questions. -Pete (talk) 15:11, 28 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Many thanks for the comments. To keep this short and still coherent, I've been recently blessed with several computer hardware additions from family and friends, which now gives me the ability to test my options for future computing. Acquired a used 13" MacBook (circa 2009) with OS X 10.75, and this gives me mobility. Then with the desktop, I re-installed the dual boot between XP and Xubuntu 12.04 LTS. Even keeping notes of the steps taken to make the three environment somewhat similar so that switching is as painless as possible. Given time, I will post details on my user page, so as not to stray too far from the generally discussed topics here. — Ineuw talk 19:15, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Tech news: 2013-22
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes.


 * Recent software changes: (Not all changes will affect you.)


 * The Translate extension and Universal Language Selector were enabled on Wikimedia Commons on May 20. Commons users can now easily change languages, and translate pages with a friendly interface.
 * The Notifications feature, active on the English Wikipedia, now supports local blacklists and whitelists. It is possible to hide users (for example certain bots) from all notifications on the wiki. Also, e-mail notifications are now grouped.
 * The first stable release of MediaWiki 1.21 for sites outside Wikimedia was published on May 25.
 * The tool storing information about languages (CLDR) was updated to the latest version (23.1).
 * Due to a software issue, users couldn't enable or disable Gadgets. The issue is now fixed.


 * Future software changes:


 * MediaWiki will stop supporting XHTML 1.0 and HTML versions lower than version 5. HTML5 will now be the default language for pages created by the software.
 * The software will check if all uploaded files are secure and match their type.
 * The Wikimedia Commons Android app will come out of the beta phase on its next release.
 * Account creation by manual log-in will now be recorded in the account creation log (bug 42434).
 * Links to file description pages will again be accessible directly from within videos (bug 43747).
 * The software behind recent changes patrolling was re-written; the change fixes issues related to patrolling new pages, among other things.
 * During a meeting, developers agreed on rules about making big changes to the software.
 * There is now a category to list pages with invalid music code.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Unsubscribe.